Transport secretary: Alternative to HS2 is years of rail chaos

TRANSPORT Secretary Patrick McLoughlin sought to head off critics of High Speed Two by telling the region's business leaders that the alternative would be years of weekend chaos on existing East MidlandS to London routes.

And he pledged to electrify services on the Midland Mainline between Nottingham and St Pancras by 2019.

"Some have argued that the money we are investing in HS2 would be better spent upgrading the existing mainlines," he told guests at the Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire Chamber of Commerce annual dinner.

The Government had recently spent around £10 billion and ten years upgrading the West Coast Mainline but, just six years on, it was already effectively full.

"For too long, this country's track record in delivering major infrastructure projects was poor. I think that's increasingly no longer the case.

"We will build the new line for £42.6 billion, including £14.4 billion of contingency, and not a penny more."

Mr McLoughlin said that as well as investing to improve and expand the existing infrastructure, it was essential to build new capacity and better connections to keep people and goods moving on the rail network.

"Total passenger demand between the East Midlands and London is expected to grow by 28 per cent over the next ten years," he said.

"Peak-time demand in Leicester, Nottingham and Derby is expected to grow by a third. And rail freight traffic in the East Midlands is forecast to increase by a quarter.

"That's why we will also build High Speed 2.

"HS2 will cut journey times between our major population cities, bringing the economies of the North and Midlands within easy reach of London."

Mr McLoughlin said HS2 would create at least 1,600 jobs in the region directly, boosting productivity by £2.2 billion a year within five years of the railway opening.

He reminded his audience that passenger demand had doubled since privatisation of the railways.

A new station under construction will connect Ilkeston with the rail network, for first time since the 1960s.

"We've invested £100m to rebuild Nottingham Station and turn it into a fitting gateway to the city. £70 million has gone on upgrading 159 miles of track on the East Midlands Mainline. That's enabled trains to run at 125mph. And we will electrify the line from London to Derby and Nottingham by 2019, cutting journey times further."

10 comments

HS2 won't happen at the end of the day, so we can relax. The economic case for it is so dreadfully flawed that most of the originla supporters of it have changed their view. It was a non-starter when the conservative party first tabled their forecasts supporting it back in 2008. At that time they forecast the construction cost as being £15billion.
I know we are bringing teachers from China now to help us with our maths, but you don't need to be too bright to see a 300+% difference in the constructuion forecasts quoted today.

Thanks, onegreen and dunkirk_pie just now.
NorthStart's alternative high speed line, HS2 Plan B, would have a station on the east side of the Airport/west side of the M1. It is the most obvious driver of future East Midlands regional growth, but would need fast connectors off into the city centre stations of Derby, Nottingham and Leicester for best results: http://tinyurl.com/p3888uq
But HS2 and a station over at Toton will not do that. HS2's stop at Toton is determined by the decision of persons in Whitehall to send HS2 north-west from London to Birmingham first, not north out of London up the M1 corridor. The two funny forks beyond Birmingham follow from that. And the Leeds fork can't get into East Midlands Airport without a handbrake turn and extra miles first. So, clap hands, it's Toton.

Northstart, the national business community haven't exactly endorsed HS2. Back in 2011, only 429 businesses bothered to contribute to the consultation process (there are over 4,500,000 business in the UK). The reason for this (as the Institute of Directors for example have clearly stated) is that there is not a scrap of evidence to suggest any benefit whatsoever to business by HS2. Rather quite the opposite.
Also, DunkirkPies comment about an unwritten law is spot on. Just look at the location of East Midlands Parkway and ask why there is no public transport to or from it, never mind the airport!

"the UK already has faster rail links from its capital city to its 5 largest cities than any other country in Western Europe." Any chance that's just because London is much closer to Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds etc. than (e.g.) Madrid, Paris etc. are to their equivalents?

Someone as usual is being economical with the facts. The £50billion odd figure being quoted of course doesn't include the capital finance costs that would be in the region of £2billion per year. Then how about HS2 Ltd.'s very own business case that contains the 'Assumptions' section (October 2013) regarding £8+billion cuts to existing rail services. these are all the facts available to see on HS2's own forecasts. These cuts include Nottingham and Derby stations, where there will be no city-centre link to HS2 anyway. Let's get real for a change about this HS2 project and look at the facts as presented by HS2 Ltd. One of the more startling and less talked about facts is that their very own forecasts are that less than 3% of road journies would switch to rail if HS2 happened. Not very impressive is it? Interstingly too, is that the UK already has faster rail links from its capital city to its 5 largest cities than any other country in Western Europe. These are the facts, and people should look at them (and the others) carefully. Take a note of those supporters of HS2 for when this hideous waste of our money finally gets dumped (as it surely will), and remind them at voting time.

1) Maybe this HS2 scheme will work out (both for the general public as well as the lucky few lining their pockets from all this), but £42.6 billion is an eye-watering figure and arguably could have been spent on better things in his time of austerity for the likes of you and me.
2) It's all very well having an improved rail infrastructure and some niftier looking trains, but what good does that do if the companies running the services charge ridiculous prices and continue to take risks with safety concerns, as a result of their greed / penny-pinching?
Cheers.